Gabriel plunged into his palace and began casting, working new ops from purest gold and pushing a quantity of this sphere’s dark blue into it, raw. The result was crude and it leaked raw potentia. Gabriel hung the bag from one of his javelins . . .

In the real, he turned again, now over a black patch of empty water between the two nearest whorls of phosphorescence.

Here goes nothing. Literally.

He dropped the javelin into the fathomless water and turned.

Gate! he called.

Which one? Ariosto asked.

You think that’s funny? Gabriel thought as the griffon put on a burst of speed in three great wingbeats that pressed him back into his high-backed saddle.

Yes, the griffon said, just as the water behind and below began to boil like a pot on a campfire far too long, huge bubbles rising.

Both of the spiral clusters began to drift rapidly toward the boiling sea.

Hooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom

A third came in from farther out at sea. From altitude, the whorls and whirls and globs of phosphorescence out there, out to the far horizon, began to move in, drifting on some invisible tide.

Oh yes, Gabriel thought. Ariosto was labouring, the wings jerky with fatigue, his noble head down, drooping . . .

The last horse was past the midpoint on the causeway. They were racing, galloping through the moonlight. The sea had risen, and the horses were raising spray as they cantered along the beach.

A huge dome, wrinkled, black, slick with seawater and crusted with some nameless parasite, began to rise from the sea. The size of it baffled the eye and the human sense of distance. Veins of glowing ice green ran across it. It rose slowly, and with it, the nameless dread increased . . .

Gabriel fed his mount some of his ops. He was burning gold, and he knew how dangerous it was now for him to cast almost anything.

What would happen if I achieved apotheosis here? he wondered, even as he passed over Sauce and Ariosto’s wings gave a shiver.

Love you, Gabriel said.

I bet you say that to all the monsters, Ariosto said. But the wings shot back and cupped the kelp-reeking air and then the lion legs were on the sand, running.

Gabriel was thrown right over the pommel of his saddle even as Ariosto rolled over his folded wings.

Gabriel lay in a hand’s depth of warm salt water, staring up at the darkness as the water filled his helmet.

Tancreda stood over him. He wriggled his toes; his neck hurt.

“Damn,” he said aloud.

Hungry! Ariosto wailed.

“Get through the gate! Get clear!” Gabriel roared, coming to his senses. He was soaking wet. “Go, go!”

A dozen greens poured across the last sand spit. Mortirmir was casting; Gabriel could tell from his posture. So was Petrarcha.

“Go!” Gabriel screamed at the company archers who stood across the gate. “Milus! Form ranks on the other side of the gate.”